Due to recent advances in technology, computer users are now able to enjoy many features that provide an improved user experience, such as playing various media and multimedia content on their personal or laptop computers. For example, most computers today are able to play compact discs (CDs) so users can listen to their favorite musical artists while working on their computers. Many computers are also equipped with digital versatile disc (DVD) drives enabling users to watch movies.
Consumer electronic devices such as portable CD players, DVD players and car receivers have widely varying capabilities in terms of media playback and user interface capabilities. Some devices are capable of displaying images and video data while some can only play back audio data. Some devices such as DVD players have graphical displays and can display complex menus with background images and thumbnails while others such as portable CD players have only simple buttons like Play, Next, Previous, and Stop with a single line liquid crystal display (LCD) with no graphical capabilities. As such, when a user stores compressed media files such as Moving Picture Experts Group audio layer-3 (MP3) files, WINDOWS MEDIA technologies audio (WMA) files, or Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) files on a computer-readable medium, the user often does not know all the playback device types that will be employed to render the stored compressed media files. For example, the user may purchase a new playback device at a later time with different capabilities from an existing media player and want to play back a previously-created computer-readable medium.
For these reasons, a system for an adaptive menu structure is desired to address one or more of these and other disadvantages.